Yes, The Square has an adulterous affair, a bag of money, a construction site and teeming rain — all the de rigueur components for noir thrillers. But Aussie filmmaker (and former stunt man) Nash Edgerton directs his first full length feature with crisp pacing, effectively placed shocks and just the right amount of humor. [Read more →]
Today, kids, we’re going to talk about the pregnant clusterfuck that is the Internet.
It used to be that buying concert tickets was part of a larger experience that began with the release of a new album and ended in the parking lot of a smoke-filled arena.
The experience, for all intents and purposes, began and ended in a parking lot. [Read more →]
Recently, I was made aware of the fact that the congress passed a health care reform action, of some sort. I don’t know what’s in it, but I don’t feel bad about that, because the people in congress who voted for it also don’t know what’s in it, either.
In a new report, the Congressional Research Service says the law may have significant unintended consequences for the “personal health insurance coverage” of senators, representatives and their staff members.
True or False:
1. The safest seats on an airplane are at the back.
2. If you fall into a frozen lake, you have only 3 minutes to escape the water.
3. In prisoner-of-war camps in Vietnam, optimists lived longer than anyone else.
Who lives and who dies in a crisis? Do you have what it takes to be one of the passengers who walks out of the jungle after a plane crash or who keeps their cool and remembers how to work a compass when you get lost in the woods? And if you don’t (or can’t) can you learn? There are lots of books on survival tips and I have read more than a few of them. The Survivor’s Club: The Secrets and Science that Could Save Your Life by Ben Sherwood takes familiar territory and still turns it into a very interesting read.
With tax day coming up soonish (?), there is no better time than now to talk about the incredible importance of taxes in America. For one thing, they fund all of the network television stations. For another, they fund all of the wars. And if it weren’t for taxes, no one would have health care or car insurance. So, as you can see, it is very important that you do all of your taxes.
“But how do you do them?” you might be asking. Well, that’s a good question. [Read more →]
Have you ever paid to watch a baseball umpire? I didn’t think so. Someone needs to get that message to Joe West, as he has never seemed to understand that during his long career calling baseball games. [Read more →]
10. After three of the questions on the tax form, he’s just written “Huh?”
9. It takes him a half hour to figure out his tip at Red Lobster.
8. He tends to whimper and say, “Nummers is hard!”
7. His last client was Nicholas Cage.
6. He swears “umpteen” is a real number.
5. He checks off the box for “joint filing,” then lights one up.
4. He keeps insisting, “No, you’re wrong! They’re due on August 15th!”
3. You notice that his calculator is really a TV remote.
2. After every number on your tax form, he’s written “or so.”
1. He likes to do his calculating in the nude, so he can count up to 21.
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
Once upon a time, you believed that you were very special. That you’d grow up to make a difference in the world, be paid handsomely for doing so, find true love, have some equally special children, and live happily ever after. Unfortunately, life hasn’t worked out quite as good as the fairytale. So, were we all lied to? In Lost’s “Happily Ever After” Desmond discovers that there is a reality where all his dreams can come true. So where is this reality and do we need to be as special as Desmond to get there? [Read more →]
When you are in sixth grade (or these days, maybe second grade), you and the other girls in your class are asked to report to the library one afternoon for the infamous “becoming a woman” discussion. In the darkened library, and speaking in hushed tones, you are given the talk about the ways that women are different from men. You may remember it as being funny, or embarrassing. You certainly don’t see it as a particularly critical event in your maturation. [Read more →]
With a twist on Mr. Stein’s wonderful/horrific posts about people who should be killed this week, I offer up a story of someone who deserves all kinds of praise and recognition:
Marine Cpl. Matthew Bradford.
Over the last ten years at least 36 USA Team swimming coaches have been banned for life from the USA swimming organization. Not, to the best of my knowledge, convicted in the court of law — and not doing hard time for their crimes — just simply banned for life from coaching the USA Swim Team. Their crime? Allegedly molesting and secretly taping teen girls in locker rooms while the girls changed and showered. [Read more →]
I have a few very close friends that are pregnant right now. They are all actually due very soon; one in a few weeks, one in a month and another at the end of the Summer. I’m totally envious of them — not like jealous envious — just excited and overwhelmed for them and what they’re about to experience. I loved being pregnant. I know it’s hard for some people to believe, but despite the fact that I’m a foul mouthed, relatively too-cool-to-be-emotional kind of girl, I was completely in awe of the fact that a baby was growing inside of my body. I was a full blown Gaylord when it came to my pregnancy. I even made myself sick. [Read more →]
Thanks to Netflix being available on Wii now, I have been checking out shows and movies I have passed over or never given the chance. One such show is Weeds. It’s about this attractive widow who sells pot to make ends meet — she would have been the woman of dreams to my roomate in my freshman year of college. I watched one episode the other night, then two, then seven episodes and a bag of Fritos later, I was passed out asleep on the couch. To me, this is the way to get into a show. I can’t stand watching it week by week — I am doing that now with How To Make It In America, and in true HBO fashion, it’s only a half hour long and the first season is something like 6 episodes. My two-year-old will be driving by the time that and Eastbound and Down have a second season. Back to Weeds — I am loving the fact there there are 4 more seasons left for me to watch. Better buy more Fritos! [Read more →]
I recently gave up caffeine. I haven’t had caffeine in about a month. I only rarely drank coffee anyway — it sometimes upset my stomach, so I usually avoided it. Instead I often drank green tea in the morning, and at some point during the day, Coca-Cola. In a typical day I would drink one or two cans of Coke, or some or all of a 20-ounce bottle. [Read more →]
In the last year, my closest friends — guys and girls — have been getting themselves in and out of the most perplexing relationships and romantic situations. The guys ask me what women are thinking. They hope I will know, but I usually do not. The girls ask me what guys are thinking. They trust my candor, and it is all too easy to express. [Read more →]
DEFENDANT’S VERSION OF EVENTS:
First of all, I want to say that I very much regret what I did. My behavior that night was inexcusable. Naturally, anyone would have been frustrated under the circumstances, but I should not have urinated in the middle of Sunset Blvd like that. That was wrong and I’m sorry that I did it. Still, after you’ve been standing around waiting for the smug bouncer to let you into a hot Hollywood nightspot, and you’re still outside waiting for almost two hours and meanwhile the bouncer is letting in a bunch of pouting and “brooding” kids from shows on the CW or something, you tend to get a little angry.
Charles Krauthammer voices his views on Obama’s new nuclear weapons policy on FOX News. Is the policy insane or ridiculous? You decide.
March 9, 2010
I dream I have purchased a large rubbery lizard that is said to have a rudimentary artificial intelligence. At first, I am unimpressed by the lizard and wish to throw it out, but gradually the lizard gets smarter and larger. My plan it to ditch the lizard at a synagogue function. I leave it in a small pond in back of the event, but it has turned charming and has acquired the ability to change colors. It has grown large now, so I fold it up and bring it home.
Last November 17th, someone shot and killed a 52-year-old man named David A. Masters. He was sitting behind the wheel of his car on Virginia’s Route 1, just outside the Capital Beltway. The Fairfax County police know what happened, but they’re covering up the details of the investigation and not even revealing the perpetrator’s name.
“I’m trying to do nothing for a while,” Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller) tells his ex-girlfriend Beth (Jennifer Jason Leigh) at an L.A. party. Greenberg does not have to try very hard. But Noah Baumbach’s character-driven film about an inactive and neurotic guy is both compelling and funny. Its strengths are the pair of strong lead performances and Baumbach’s subtle and witty script. [Read more →]
As Bill Roggio writes in the Weekly Standard, the video released today by Wikileaks along with a claim that the video shows that the U.S. Military “murdered” a Reuters cameraman and other Iraqi “civilians” in Baghdad on July 12, 2007, was anything but collateral murder.
Read Mr. Roggio’s comments and then watch the video carefully.
I really, really hate the phrase “ripped from the headlines.” It ought to be on one of those lists of cliches than can never ever be used again in print. But open a newspaper or click on a news website and you are likely to see a story similar to Megan Gunther’s situation in 212 by Alafair Burke. Megan finds herself the subject of some particularly nasty posts on a college gossip site. The anonymous poster is familiar with Megan’s schedule — he (or she) knows when Megan is at home, when she goes to spin class, when she has her chemistry lab. She’s a little freaked out; who wouldn’t be? The police are no help — there are no threats, so their hands are tied. But when Megan turns up dead, her roommate critically wounded, someone finally decides to take things seriously. [Read more →]
Recently, I was looking at a list of quotations having to do with skepticism. Most were unexceptional platitudes either for or against. One, however, was extraordinary: “In the end we shall have had enough of cynicism and skepticism and humbug and we shall want to live more musically.”
The first thing that is odd about this is the grouping of cynicism, skepticism, and humbug. Then there is the contrast between those and living musically. And of course there is the question as to what “to live more musically” means. [Read more →]
About two dozen women walked topless on the sidewalks of Portland, Maine, in order to support the right of women to… walk around topless. The women were ”preceded and followed by several hundred boisterous and mostly male onlookers, many of them carrying cameras.” [Read more →]
If I were King, I’d decree that no restaurant could put Swiss cheese on anything without noting so prominently on the menu, in bold type in at least a 14-point font, and without also notifying the customer placing the order, just in case the customer didn’t see the warning on the menu. Each restaurant or deli would have to tell any customer ordering a sandwich that had Swiss cheese, “By order of the King, I am required to inform you that this item comes with Swiss cheese. Are you sure that you want Swiss cheese?” In my kingdom, no one would ever have to scrape melted Swiss cheese off of a panini after they got home and discovered the offending fromage.
Also, if I were King, olives would only be permitted to be included in a menu item if specifically asked for by a customer. Olives would never appear, without warning, all chopped up in anyone’s salad, in tiny pieces that can’t be fished out.
My kingdom would be a humane, truly just society. So let it be written. So let it be done.
That clown prince of the Senate, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma — where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain — is up to his old tricks again. Not content to simply rubberstamp unfunded spending like the rest of his esteemed colleagues, Senator Coburn has blocked the extension of federal unemployment benefits. And because of this Easter Scrooge, 200,000 people this week will be without their dole. [Read more →]
Hey, College Football, it’s me, Alan. I was wondering if you were paying attention to the NCAA Basketball Tournament. If so, I imagine you have noticed that the Butler Bulldogs are in the final. They got there by playing and beating some really good teams. There was no voting to decide who should play in the final. If there had been, there is no way Butler, who ended the season ranked 11th, would be lined up to play Duke for all the marbles. Seems like maybe the basketball people are on to something here. [Read more →]
10. “Ever since Sarah Palin started wearing leather motorcycle jackets and leather skirts, we’re really into S&M.”
9. “We didn’t think we’d get caught.”
8. “Rush Limbaugh told us a guy there could score us some Oxycontin.”
7. “We thought we’d create our own ‘Self-Stimulus Package’.”
6. “We’re just a bunch of rich arrogant jerks, big deal!”
5. “We were only trying to prevent unnecessary layoffs in the Stripper Industry.”
4. “We took a real spanking in 2008, and got to like it.”
3. “Why should Democrats have all the fun?”
2. “We thought the club’s lesbian role play might help us with any ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ legislation.”
1. “Ever since Republican Senator Larry Craig got busted for lewd conduct in an airport’s men’s room, the GOP has been desperately trying to re-establish its ‘hetero cred’.”
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
Like millions of my fellow denizens of this deeply troubled planet, I’m looking forward to purchasing an iPad. And then, three or four years from now, I’m going to throw it into the garbage or, as we euphemistically like to refer to it, the “recycling bin.” [Read more →]
As we draw near the end of Holy Week, a week where the two biggest Christ-related news stories involved sex abuse in Europe and Christian militia in America, with breaks devoted to ads for Easter candy and holiday sales events, it’s good to remember the biggest news story of all …
He is risen …
Christ is risen, indeed …
[Read more →]
